Like with Lithium
by rikkucheerio
Summary: GorenOC. This is my postUntethered fic with a little extra tossed in.


God. Where do I start?

For starters, I'm having an incredibly difficult time thinking clearly about anything. If you think of the mind as a filing cabinet with an extremely complex filing system, then comparatively, mine has been taken over by someone who is not only anal expulsive, but dyslexic. I'm trying to process what's happening, but... I-I can't.

Or... maybe it's just simply that I don't want to. Because to force myself to process and to work through everything is to acknowledge all that's happened. And that, I _can't_ do. Not now.

And I'm tired. So very tired. I've only slept a maximum of four hours over the last three days. I can't sleep because if I do, the nightmares will be there, like... looming in the darkness like... well, they'll just be there. But that's assuming I fall asleep in the first place. I can't lay on my back without inciting panic. And that's an instant adrenaline shot, making sure sleep is just a fleeting fancy.

I've been picking fights with everyone and anyone I've come into contact since I got back. Frank and Andy bearing the brunt, although that's not to say Frank doesn't deserve what he got. He certainly does, but not to the degree with which I gave. Andy, though... she doesn't deserve any of this. But there's this overwhelming inability to give a flying fuck about anything, including my actions towards her. I don't even care that I don't care. But anger... that's something I have an overabundance of. If I can make it hurt, that's even better because it doesn't bother me. I can lash out without feeling guilty. But that's not an incentive by any means... I'm not blind, I can see it hurts. And yet... that doesn't stop me.

No. It _does_ make me want to keep going. Because anger is an emotion... and... anything is better than feeling like my insides are made of ash.

As if that weren't enough, I have this burning desire to get away from Andy. Especially after last night. We faced off in the hallway. She was screaming at me, pushing and pushing me, until everything just exploded...

"_Goddamn it, stop running away from me! Why can't you stay here and yell in my face!? I want to hear it, all of it, whatever the hell is eating you alive inside scream it out at me!"_

_  
He stopped in the middle of the hallway. He stood there for a moment, biting his lip, breathing hard. Turning around, he walked back to her and stood close. He balled his hands into fists to stop them shaking and growled at her. "You want to know what they did? With four-point restraints, they tied me to a table in a hot, tiny room. The denied any water for almost 18 hours. And because that wasn't enough, they stuck me in isolation for a night only so they could do. it. again."  
_  
_"Wha... those... I'll... If there was a way I could do the same to all of them. I would. It wouldn't make it right. It wouldn't fix you. But it would make me feel a hell of a lot better."_

_"Yeah. Right."_

_"If you leave this time... will you come back?"_

"_I don't know and I don't care."_

_She staggered back like he'd hit her._

_He took a step towards her, putting a couple fingers at his temple. "I can't even think straight right now! This isn't about you; it has nothing to do with you. You don't even really want me around. Talking to a wall, right? Just leave me alone!" He turned around and started walking away again._

So tonight, I'm going to start bringing stuff over to the new apartment and I'm going to stay there. A large part of why I want to be alone is so I can drink. Not to wash away my problems or to drown the pain. That requires actually feeling something. But, it's like... I'm expecting to find emotions at the bottom of the bottle. Like all the answers will be there and I'll be able to put the pieces back together. Backwards logic is telling me this will help.

But I know it won't. And still I do it anyway.

I recognize that I need a lot of help, but I'm not motivated in the least. I don't care. I'm not interested in getting my job back. I'm not interested in fighting to fix my relationship. I'm barely interested in my baby. Nothing holds any value anymore. Even sitting here writing this, I'm approaching it like I'm writing an article for an encyclopedia. It's dry, it's cold, it's impersonal. I recognize being in the same space as Andy is not healthy, for either one of us, especially since I can't and won't talk to her.

It's as if I'm in a holding pattern. It's only a matter of time before I have a complete meltdown. I can't keep everything inside but at the same time, for the same reason, I can't let it see the light of day. I'm figuring out where the boundaries of safe conversations lie and how close I can get to talking about it. I can talk about Frank. I can reference it. But any closer and I panic. I can feel the pressure building up, like a shaken soda bottle, just waiting for some innocent person to come and loosen the cap. That person cannot be Andy.

And... perhaps the worst part still, is that I feel like she and I are strangers who just happen to cohabit. It's virtually impossible for me to touch her. I have, but it's either been extremely difficult or downright fake. I don't remember the last time I kissed her. I don't remember the last time I told her I loved her without the words having some dark riptide of appeasement and apathy swirling around underneath.

I'm too fractured and broken to put any part of myself out there. I'm keeping everything inside, like I'm sitting on the inside of a broken vase, frantically slapping up pieces of scotch tape, trying to stem the breakdown of those little bits of cracked porcelain before the entire thing collapses in on me, taking my protection with it. But I'm running out of tape and the cracks keep coming.

So what do I do now?


End file.
